GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.2) CWE-1025 vulnerability in tough. A fix is available for tough — see the affected versions and patch details below.
tough failure to detect delegated target rollback
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,166 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
toughReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
When updating the snapshot role, TUF clients should ensure that any previously encountered targets or delegated targets metadata files continue to be present in new snapshot metadata files. Likewise, the new targets and delegated targets metadata versions must be greater than or equal to the previously encountered versions. While tough will perform this check for targets metadata files, it did not perform this check for delegated targets files.
Impact
tough could fail to detect cases where delegated targets metadata was removed or rolled back to a previous version. As a result, tough could trust and download outdated targets that it should reject.
Impacted versions: < v0.20.0
Patches
A fix for this issue is available in tough version 0.20.0 and later. Customers are advised to upgrade to version 0.20.0 or later and ensure any forked or derivative code is patched to incorporate the new fixes.
Workarounds
There is no recommended work around. Customers are advised to upgrade to version 0.20.0 or the latest version.
References
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory we ask that you contact AWS/Amazon Security via our vulnerability reporting page [1] or directly via email to [email protected]. Please do not create a public GitHub issue.
[1] Vulnerability reporting page: https://aws.amazon.com/security/vulnerability-reporting
Acknowledgement
These issues were identified by the TUF-Conformance project. We would like to thank Google for collaborating on this issue through the coordinated vulnerability disclosure process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | tough | all versions | 0.20.0cargo update -p tough --precise 0.20.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for tough, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update tough to 0.20.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-q6r9-r9pw-4cf7 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.